


whose texture compels me with the colour of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing

by heartslogos



Series: than all the sky which only is higher than the sky [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Character, F/M, Gen, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Life Partners, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 14:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6379783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartslogos/pseuds/heartslogos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>your slightest look easily will unclose me</i><br/>though i have closed myself as fingers,<br/>you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens<br/>(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose  </p><p>- e.e. cummings</p><p>A love story told in glimpses between the Iron Bull and Inquisitor Lavellan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	whose texture compels me with the colour of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing

**Author's Note:**

> _somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond_ is maybe the most iron bull/lavellan poem i can think of
> 
> somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond  
> any experience,your eyes have their silence:  
> in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,  
> or which i cannot touch because they are too near
> 
> your slightest look easily will unclose me  
> though i have closed myself as fingers,  
> you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens  
> (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
> 
> or if your wish be to close me,i and  
> my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,  
> as when the heart of this flower imagines  
> the snow carefully everywhere descending;
> 
> nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals  
> the power of your intense fragility:whose texture  
> compels me with the colour of its countries,  
> rendering death and forever with each breathing
> 
> (i do not know what it is about you that closes  
> and opens;only something in me understands  
> the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)  
> nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

In the corner of his mind, Bull is aware of the faint warning sound of soft, worn boots against stone, and the rasp of fingernails against the wooden door. He hears it, he acknowledges it. But he does not stop.

She knows what it means when he ties a red string around the door handle.

He’s busy.

She pauses outside the door and Bull does not stop. Skin on skin, the mind slips away, it becomes other things and other shapes.

Bull allows himself to enjoy using his training for other purposes that aren’t spying. Especially now that he is _not_ a spy.

He’s her spy, that’s a different story.

So Bull does not stop, because he’s told her what the red string means, and her eyes are good enough that she can see it in the night, and her ears are sharp enough that she can probably damn well hear what’s going on behind closed doors.

She opens the door, anyway, and Bull takes a moment to be irritated, but looks up to where he knows her eyes will be through the crack she’s opened in the fantasy he’s woven for this one hour where he is not the Iron Bull, the Inquisitor’s right hand man and Qunari Tal-Vashoth, and this woman is not a scullery maid who had to leave her family behind because the boy who was supposed to be her fiancé took all her money and ran after smearing her name so bad her family started to pretend she was dead.

Bull raises an eyebrow.

Lavellan watches him and her lips part as if to say something -

“Oh.” The woman says and Bull sighs because no matter how damn good he is at getting someone into it, something about seeing _the Inquisitor of fucking Thedas_ , owner of the castle you work at, superior officer to the guy who’s fucking you, and supposed Herald of Andraste is going to knock you the fuck out of whatever  mood you’re in.

Bull considers continuing, but stops because the moment has passed and he can feel the woman’s embarrassment. She shouldn’t be. It’s not her fault. Lavellan knew.

Lavellan doesn’t particularly care what people do in their private lives, anyway.

“You needed something, boss?” Bull asks, resting his weight on his palms, on either side of the woman’s hips over the footboard. “In the middle of something.”

Lavellan is quiet, eyes on him, and she knows that he’s irritated with her. He lets her see.

This is how they work.

They’ve come a very long way for this kind of honesty.

This – heh – naked honesty.

“I’m sorry to interrupt.” Lavellan says, and her voice is always quiet but somehow it always comes out loud. Bull rubs the back of his neck and the footboard creaks.

He doesn’t doubt that she’s sorry. She doesn’t say things she doesn’t mean. But the way words work for her aren’t the same ways words work for everyone else.

“Your worship.” The woman – Merissa – breathes, hands fists, eyes wide.

“Hello, Merissa.” Lavellan says, and smiles. A kind smile, but in this situation the wrong one to use. Bull internally winces. “I’m sorry to interrupt on your night off. I’ll leave. I just had to stop by for a bit. Don’t worry.”

“No – your worship, I – “

But she’s gone. The door is closed and it looks like it never opened and Bull sighs, pulling back and out because there’s no way they can keep going after this.

Bull narrows his eyes at the door and thinks.

The words you understand are not the same words in her tongue.

-

“I can’t believe she heard all that and said _yes_.” Krem says.

“Axes.” Bull mutters as he watches damned good liquor run into the sea. “What the hell is wrong with you people? And they call my people the barbarians.”

“We also call Southerners barbarians in Tevinter. I figure we’re all fucked.” Krem says. “And they got excited. Nothing gets the blood going like lightning and ocean spray and kicking Tevinter ass.”

“Says the Tevinter soldier.”

“I like to think it says something about the state of the nation that even former Tevinter citizens enjoy kicking their own military’s asses.” Krem replies. “It also says something about the state of the nation that its so called Herald of Andraste and possible savior of the world says yes to hiring a band of mercenaries, knowing that the leader of that mercenary group is going to be spying on her.”

Bull shrugs, because it’s true that most people don’t take that kind of news too well.

He was fully prepared to send in one of his contacts in his place if she said no. He had it all set up and everything. He was thinking a former Dalish. Though he wasn’t sure which one to send.

Not all Dalish clans get along and he wasn’t sure exactly which one she would be from.

“Maybe it wasn’t her choice.” Bull muses.

He doubts that this so-called _Herald of Andraste_  – and he wonders how much of _that_ is her choice, too, if any of it – is actually calling the shots here.

Handing a Dalish _mage_ that kind of power in the wake of the Conclave going to shit, the death of the Divine, the Mage-Templar War, and this Tevinter invasion is unquestionably _idiotic_.

From the rumors of who’s signed onto the Inquisition, they aren’t _that_ idiotic.

“I don’t think so.” Krem muses, looping his arms over his mace, humming a little. Krem tilts his head to the side and up, grinning at him. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see the way people looked at her.”

“And how did people look at her?” Bull looks down and to the side at him.

“It wasn’t a lot, and it wasn’t something you’d pick up if you weren’t looking.” Krem pauses.

“And I trained you to always look, yeah. Go on.” Bull nudges him with the tip of his boot.

“A lot of them – the ones who weren’t looking at her the way you’d expect people to look at the so-called Herald of Andraste – a lot of them were looking at her the way we look at you. Not to the same degree. I mean she’s been there, what – two months? But it’s like when Skinner or Grim just signed on and they looked at you. You know. Like they _wanted_ to trust you. Like they _wanted_ to follow you. Testing the waters, but wanting those waters to be nice.”

“You’ve got a way with words. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“I’ve often been told I have a mouth on me, ser.”

They listen to the rain and the thunder and the ocean and the sound of so much money’s worth of good liquor wash away with blood.

“Like me, huh?” Bull repeats, listening to the sound of gravel underneath his boots as he shifts his weight. “You sure?”

“Well. She said yes, so you’ll be seeing for yourself soon enough.” Krem shrugs. “I guess we’ll see who’s right then, huh, Chief?”

-

“All right, I’ll bite. What’re you doing?” Bull asks and the Inquisitor looks up at him, string knotted around her little spider-like hands, flower petals, and other sorts of stuff sorted into neat piles in a half circle in front of her.

“I am making something.” She says, and looks back down to continue her work.

“What sort of something?” Bull asks, tilting his head as she wraps string around flower, slowly knotting the flower petals and swallowing them in dark thread.

“A promise.” She says. And she picks up what looks like some sort of bone using the string – dark, broken off, a chip? It looks burned a little. Rough. – to swallow the bone in a complex series of finger movements he doesn’t think he could repeat. Maybe if he watched her do it a few more times.

It’s like watching a spider weave a fly into its web.

“To?”

“Myself.” She answers, and starts singing – chanting? – something softly under her breath in a deep voice that kind of pulls at the edges of his vision.

He’s seen Dalish do her thing. It’s not like this. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Dalish do something like this.

Bull opens his mouth to ask.

Lavellan holds the string up between them, her fingers splayed with the black-threaded web and the petals and the possible bone-chip arranged in between.

“ _Shhh_.” She whispers.

He closes his mouth, and he sits down next to her, the sun on their backs and the smell of moss on old stone around them as sounds filter up from the lower courtyard. He rests his elbows on his knees and he watches. She chants. He watches. She weaves. He stays.

“It is a promise of love.” She tells him. and the web is no longer a web. Somehow she has compacted bone and flowers, seeds and feathers, thins trips of leather, beads, and strange liquids into a single chord about the width of her small finger.

“Love?” Bull asks, _what sort of love_?

“And it is a promise of faith.” She continues. She looks at him, the chord suspended between her fingers. “But more than all of that, it is a promise of vengeance.”

Bull feels his eyebrows raising in question.

She closes her hands together, cupping the chord in her palms and she breathes onto it, and whispers something soft enough he can’t hear her. He doubts he would understand what she said even if he could.

“Tell no one.” She says to him.

“That an order, boss?” He asks.

She opens her palms and the chord is gone.

“It is what it is.” She replies. And smiles. “It’s a promise.”

-

Sometimes the way that the others look at her – it makes him uncomfortable.

Solas – Solas looks at her like she’s his kid. Or something like that. Stranger. Farther. More painful. There’s guilt there. Remorse. Longing. A desire that Bull can’t really put words to. he wants to hold her. He wants to take her away from the hurt. He wants to give her things that aren’t his to give.

Sera – Sera sometimes looks at her like a friend. A playmate. But there are times when Sera looks at her like she’s stupid. An idiot. Like she’s pitiful.

Varric looks at her and sometimes doesn’t see her at all. He sees someone else. That someone else changes, depending on the day, but Bull has a pretty solid idea of who it usually is. Varric has a history with elves lost among men.

Dorian just loves her. Period. And that’s – that’s fine. He’s alright with that. Lavellan could use more of that kind of pure, growing love. She needs friends. She doesn’t have many. No matter how many people kiss her ass and are nice to her and worship the ground she walks on. She needs friends like Dorian.

Cole looks at her like he’s seeing the sun for the first time and Bull isn’t going to touch that. It isn’t his place and he probably wouldn’t understand it anyway.

Leliana sometimes looks at her the same way Varric does. Like she’s seeing someone else. And that’s not Bull’s place to pry, either. But sometimes she looks at Lavellan like you look at a really, really nice weapon you found and are thinking about who to use it on first. That, _that_ makes Bull uncomfortable. He knows that Leliana doesn’t think like that all the time. Just – sometimes. She’s the spymaster and the former Left Hand of the Divine. She didn’t get that far by _not_ considering her tools.

And then there’s Cullen. And Cassandra.

They look at her like she’s a gift. A savior. She isn’t. She’s a girl. A young girl who’s _nice_ and wants to do the right thing.

But sometimes Cullen looks at her like he’s expecting divine revelation and Bull is fairly sure Lavellan knows that. She’s guided him through messes, she makes the decisions, and she’s kept him off of lyrium.  She’s the so-called Herald of his Andraste and that’s bound to cause some sort of reverence.

It’s not always, but it’s – it’s enough that it makes Bull a little frustrated.

With Cassandra it’s even rarer, farther in between. Harder to see. But it’s there. It surprises him. It shouldn’t.

Cassandra and Cullen are perhaps the two most devout people in the entire Inquisition. _Including_ the Chantry mothers and sisters.

Doesn’t mean it’s right.

She’s a person. Just like anyone else.

She needs to be seen.

-

Her bones are so thin, so fine under his hands. He can feel every shift of muscle and bone and nerve and tendon through his palm, just by touching her back. Through all that cloth and leather and armor, he can feel her blood.

She leans into his touch and closes her eyes and breathes.

“I’m tired.” She says.

“Want me to carry you?”

Bull is only half-joking when he says it.

He would. If she asked. And even if she didn’t.

Lavellan blinks and smiles up at him before springing to her feet.

“No rest for the wicked. That’s a line from a book Dorian read to me.” Lavellan brushes her hands on her pants, then bends down to pick up her staff. The moon is obscenely huge and bright as it glares down on them. The Anchor crackles in her palm, casting strange shadows onto the sand and stone. “There’s no rest for the good, either. I don’t think there’s anyone in this entire world who gets to rest, Bull. I used to think people did, but now I just think everyone is running in circles. In deserts and in forests – just all over the place.”

“You wouldn’t be wrong.” Bull muses, standing up to follow her. He moves to block her from the wind. Her eyes and her hand glitter in his shadow as she looks up at him. Close enough that he has to look down, down, down at her to see. “Shame about that.”

She touches him, fingertips ghosting like the wind – except warm instead of cold – just over the leather band around his waist. Just for a second.

“Yes.” She agrees, turning away and looking back towards the campsite. “It is a shame.”

-

“So. Tevinter.” Bull says, leaning against the stone between the path to the gates of Haven and the fence to the small pen they have for the mounts. Mainly Lavellan’s hart.

“Yes. Dorian is very helpful.” Lavellan says, as she runs her hands over her harts legs. He took an awkward fall onto ice during their morning run. It was supposed to be solid but the snow wasn’t as packed as she thought, they slid.

He doesn’t seem to be injured, but better safe than sorry.

“You sure about this?” Bull asks, “He’s kind of the guy who brought this to our door.”

Lavellan croons at her hart as the stag tosses his head.

“It’s for your own good, my vhenan.” She croons at the stag, running her palms over his flanks. “Hush, now.”

She turns to him.

“Dorian may have been part of the research for this in Tevinter, but he is not the one who brought this to us.” Lavellan kneels back down to continue her inspection of the hart’s legs. “He fixed the problem, and now he wants to keep fixing it.”

“You think he’ll really help?”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And Dorian knows more about our shared enemy than anyone else here.” She tilts her head towards him, “Unless your reports say anything new about these Venatori? And their master?”

Bull clicks his tongue. “No. He could be lying.”

“Is he?”

Bull sighs and scratches the back of his head, dragging his palm down over his neck. “No.”

“You just don’t like him because he’s from Tevinter. Just like how he doesn’t like you because you’re Qunari. Neither of you know each other. But now you are both _my_ friends and the three of us have the same enemy.” Lavellan stands up, hands on the small of her back as she stretches, face tilting back towards the sky. “It doesn’t matter if you two don’t trust each other. In fact, I’d prefer it. You can watch each other.”

“That helps you?” Bull raises an eyebrow. “We aren’t supposed to be pointing fingers at each other.”

Lavellan tilts her head and smiles at him.

“The Iron Bull, both of you want me to trust you. How better than to catch the other in the act of sabotage for me?”

Bull feels reluctantly impressed.

“So watch each other. Keep each other in line.” She continues, pulling herself up onto her stags back. “Do me that favor. And while you two watch each other, I’ll be watching everything else.”

Lavellan clicks her tongue and her stag turns towards him. Bull moves aside as the stag runs and jumps over the fence.

Their eyes meet as she jumps. Lavellan grins at him. Lightning storms.

Bull watches her and the stag ride off into the woods.

“Clever bas.” Bull mutters to himself.

-

Adamant is a mess. Adamant is one goddamn fucking huge mess.

Bull sees the dragon. He sees the bridge.

He sees the giant green rift and he thinks _fuck_ it’s Redcliffe all over again. Bull does _not_ see Lavellan go into the rift.

“No.” Bull says, swings his sword and hits two fear demons, throwing them aside as he moves to the edge of a battlement, bracing his hands on it as he tries to see into the dark. “ _No_.”

He slams his fist down on the stone and snarls -

“ _Chief_.” Skinner yells, “ _Chief_.”

Bull turns, snarl on his lips as he turns his back on the empty space where _she should be_ and roars.

He raises his sword and lets the anger, the fear, the hurt, the pain, the grief push him that step farther. Blood and bone and heart.

She has to come back. She isn’t dead.

He should be with her. He isn’t.

He just has to have faith in whoever went with her.

Dorian, Cassandra, Solas.

They have to take care of her.

Bull doesn’t believe in much, but he chooses to believe in that. She chose them over him for a reason. He has to believe.

She will come back.

There is a voice inside of him that he tries to ignore – this is not the time –, compartmentalize to the side. But it says, clearly, and firmly, that word that he’s been trying to avoid using for the past few months.

Not now. When she comes back, he decides.

She will come back. He will tell her the word. It will be off his chest.

-

Cullen’s sent Bull to go find Lavellan for something, he’s not sure what, but it’s not really his business to ask. If they tell him, they tell him. If they don’t, they don’t.

Around this time of day, she’s usually studying runes or herbs or something with Solas. They’re probably inside right now, so he goes across the the bridge linking the Commander’s tower to the rotunda.

He can hear them arguing through the door.

“You don’t get to say that.” She’s yelling. “You don’t get to say that about him.”

Solas’ voice is quieter, but it sounds just as angry through the door and Bull pauses, his hand over the door handle. He figures that they should be able to sense him. Mages and elves are weirdly good at feeling other people around. But they keep arguing.

“No.” Lavellan snaps, “He’s my friend. He’s my – he’s _mine_. And you don’t get to say _shit_ about him. Not when he’s worked just as hard as you, since the start. He’s been nothing but honest with me. He has never lied to me. Not once. Not even given me a half truth or an omission. Not like you. He’s _nothing like you_.”

Bull feels like he’s intruding, but he isn’t sure if he should open the door or leave and come back later.

“He’s better than you are.” Lavellan says after Solas says something. “I wish you were him, I wish he were you. I wish I could have you both. But I can’t. It’s just – it’s you. It’s him. I choose him. And you can’t talk to him, about him, like that. Not anymore. I won’t let you.”

Bull doesn’t know what Solas says next, can’t even guess, because Lavellan throws the door open and Bull has to stumble back to avoid getting hit in the face.

“Oh.” She looks up at him, eyes wide and past her he can see Solas reaching for her. When Solas sees him, an expression of humiliation, anger, and – envy? flashes over his normally closed face before it quickly shuts down.

Bull can guess who they were talking about, looking between them.

“Sorry to interrupt.” Bull says, standing aside and back, “Cullen’s looking or you, Boss. Something to do with the distribution of supplies at the Approach.”

“Alright.” Lavellan says, taking his hand. Bull doesn’t miss the way Solas’ eyes narrow and mouth turns downwards. Disapproval in every line. “Let’s go. I’m done here.”

-

“What did you do?” Bull asks as she climbs in through the window, and then flattens herself down on the bench, head in his lap.

“Nothing.”

“Then why’re you hiding?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” Bull raises an eyebrow, crosses his arms. He can see Krem snickering at them across the room. “What’d you do?”

“ _Nothing_.” Lavellan pouts. It’s cute. It doesn’t work, though.

As if, on cue, he hears Cassandra scream. Bull leans over her and cranes his neck to look out the window. Cassandra is holding a book and looks like she’s either about to rip someone apart with her bare hands or wrestle a _bear_.

“I might have, _might have_ , told Varric about something I shouldn’t have. He might have wrote a book about it. Not _Swords and Shields_.” Lavellan says.

Bull shakes his head. “You make this a really hard job, you know that?”

“You love it.”

“I do.”

-

Lavellan cups his cheek in her palm, her thumb gently running over his cheek bone.

“You’re awake.”

Bull squints up at her and groans, his mouth feels like something died and dried up right on his tongue. “What happened?”

“You took a hit from a dragon into a cliff wall.” She says, and Bull slowly tries to turn his head but feels a twinge at the back of his head. Her hands stop him from moving. “Cassandra finished the fight. You would have loved to see it.”

“Great. Damn. I wanted to bring it down myself.” Bull slowly raises his arm to rub at his face. “You alright, boss?”

“Because of you, yes. I don’t think I would have gotten away as well as you did.” She leans down over him and kisses him over the ruined eye. “Ma serannas, Bull, thank you. I was worried and afraid for you. Why did you do that? Thank you, but why did you do that?”

Bull blinks up at her and he realizes that she’s holding his head in her lap, sideways so that his horn is sort of resting against her hip.

“I told you, didn’t I? I’m your frontline body guard. I’m your guy. Demons, dragons, bears, whatever the fuck you go against, I’m gonna be there with you.”

Lavellan looks incredibly sad when he says it.

“You frightened me. Doing all this just because you said you would. Because I pay you to do it.”

Bull grins a little. “Not just because you pay me. I consider fighting dragons a nice bonus. Makes me feel _young_. You sure know how to treat a guy, Boss.”

Lavellan smiles a little. “Only the best for my front line body guard.”

She cups his jaw and kisses him over the eye again.

“Could you just – try not to scare me again?”

“If we go up against more dragons I can’t make any promises.” Bull says, reaching up to tug at her hair. “I’m sturdy, Boss. No worries. We’ve got bigger things to worry about than me.”

Lavellan opens her mouth to say something, but turns her head quickly, expressions flying and packing themselves away. Bull lifts his head a little, winces at the pain at the back of his head and neck, and sees Stitches coming through with a group of Inquisition scouts and medics.

As the medics and Stitches get him up and start checking him over, Lavellan whispers to him, as he’s moving away -

“It is because you are so sturdy I worry about you. Always. Never doubt that.”

-

“Not you.” Lavellan says to the ceiling, voice low and sharp. Painful in ways Bull doesn’t like to think about as he sits to the side and pretends he isn’t watching them clean her up.

“What?” Vivienne pauses in the middle of reaching for the bandages.

“I said,” Lavellan repeats, slower, deadlier, sharper, “Not _you_.”

Lavellan turns her head towards him and Bull stops pretending. He looks across the room at her, propped up on pillows, eyes dark and skin drained.

“I want him.” She says.

“He’s hardly a medical professional, darling.” Vivienne says, but she puts the bandages down, anyway. “But I suppose he hasn’t died yet.”

“Thanks for the ringing endorsement, ma’am.” Bull pushes to his feet, and moves across the room to take the bandages off the table. Lavellan watching him the entire time. “This is going – it’s not going to be pretty, kadan. You’re normally out when they do this part.”

“I know.” She says. “That’s why I want you to do it instead. You won’t lie about it. You’re the only one.”

The only liar among them who tells her the truth. How can there be so much irony in his life? Bull sits next to her on the bed, and he slowly starts to undo the bandages from last night. She doesn’t watch the bandages. She watches his face. And he lets every flicker of regret and reluctance, remorse and rage and _love_ show on it. For her.

It seems, always, for her.

The wound is still weeping. He wonders when it will stop. The stitches look as good as can be expected. Otherwise, it’s still as bad as it was the last time he saw it.

Bull pulls the basin of medicated water closer to himself and starts cleaning it.

He doesn’t say anything. He just starts.

He remembers, a long time ago, Krem doing this for the eye. It seems far away, different than now.

He sees her reaching for him, he focuses on the black stitches against her red and inflamed skin. They had to cut more off. She was, at least, out by then.

Her fingers touch his cheek, just underneath the eye patch. He can feel her finger sliding over the edge of it, a suggestion. Take it off. Show her his, as she’s showing hers.

Bull shakes his head. Not now.

Lavellan’s hand drops and she continues to study his face, studying his face to see about her arm.

-

He comes back from reporting to the spymaster to find her sleeping on his bed. He stands in the doorway, and wonders what to do about it. He could go down and sleep with the boys in the field tents.

She’s on top of the covers, feet and legs off the edge of the bed, like she was sitting and waiting for him, but fell asleep – and fell over.

Her hand is curled by her face, and she is small, little, on the empty bed.

Should he wake her? Move her?

It’s her castle, he figures she probably has the right to fall asleep anywhere she wants.

As Bull is considering turning around to go she moves, turning her face into the covers and wrinkling her nose and mouth.

She opens her eyes, slowly.

“The Iron Bull?” She murmurs.

“Yeah, boss.” Bull says, shutting the door behind himself as he moves to stand over her, “You alright?”

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Mountains falling, red lyrium, ancient Tevinter shitbags rising from the dead.

She almost died. At least three times over.

She found the Inquisition a _castle_.

Solas – technically, but still.

He carefully touches her shoulder, and she reaches up and lightly curls her fingers over his wrist.

“Stay.” She ask-orders. Bull nods, and scoops her up against his chest with one arm – how can this girl save the world? – and throws the covers back. He puts her back down, and starts taking off her boots. She watches him through half-opened eyes and murmurs words he can’t really catch. Sleep-mumbles and foreign words and made up sounds. He sets her boots down on the floor, then sits down on the bed to start taking off his own. He feels her hand brush against his back. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“Hm?” He focuses on untying his boots.

“They told me, when they brought me to the camp. You were afraid.” She says. “Cole told me, you were afraid. You wanted to be with me. You couldn’t fit in the tent. You were too big, and there wouldn’t be room for anyone else. You felt ashamed. I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”

Bull tries to put face to a name – Cole?

Bull gets his boots off, puts them next to hers, and turns to her. He reaches over and brushes her hair from her face.

“I should have been there.” No point in lying about it. “I made you a promise. We have a deal. I keep you safe.”

She puts her hand over his. “It was the only way. But I’m sorry. I hurt you.”

Her eyes slowly drift closed and Bull listens to her breathing even out.

He carefully pets her hair for a few more moments, watching her eyes move underneath her thin eyelids, her mouth slack and limbs loose before he lies down next to her. She slides over the mattress, falling into the dip his weight makes. He can feel her slow breathing on his skin.

“No you’re not.” He says to the dark. “You liar. You’d do it all over again if you had to. You’d hurt me a thousand times over if it’s what the world needed.”

It makes him – it makes him sad.

He feels something kick in his chest.

“That’s why they made you the boss.”

-

He makes Josephine nervous. Understandable. He’s a big, tough, armed to the teeth spy-slash-mercenary and she’s. Well. _Josephine_.

Bull stills finds himself sitting in her little office in the Haven Chantry every week or so giving her reports he’s been getting from the Qun, general observations he’s made about things around Haven and the other Inquisition camps, and opinions he has in general. It’s like reporting to the higher ups, but more relaxed.

“I just – one question, if you don’t mind.” She asks him, one day as he’s about to get up to leave.

“Yeah, sure. Shoot.”

“Lavellan, what do you –,” Josephine pauses, and takes a breath before looking him in the eye and continuing, “Do you respect her?”

Bull blinks at her.

“What?”

“Do you respect her and her decisions?” Josephine repeats. “It’s – I need to know. For most it’s fine, she’s the Herald of Andraste. Or at least, that’s what they want to believe of her. Or she’s saved their lives, or the life of someone they know, or maybe she’s killed someone who hurt them, or done something for someone they know. But you’re – _you_. Why do you follow her? Do you listen to her?”

Bull sits back down in the little chair in Josephine’s little office and finds himself re-thinking everything, well, _Josephine_.

He puts his hands together and  he thinks about the past few weeks – months – of following her. Hearing stories about her when he isn’t with her. Just hearing and seeing her everywhere. Touches of her. Ghosts of the impacts of her actions.

He thinks about the many, _many_ ways he’s misunderstood her. The ways that she misunderstands _him_. And everyone else.

She’s earnest. She’s hard working. She’s honest.

But she’s clever. A clever and dangerous bas. She knows how she looks. She knows what people think. And she weighs her actions well.

There’s something pure, hard, treated, and tried metal in her. Lining her bones and keeping her upright.

She doesn’t sway. She doesn’t bow to Cullen or Leliana or Josephine or the Chantry. People say shit about her, sometimes to her face, she doesn’t react. She’s good. She’s got a firm control over her reactions. Her feelings.

And in a fight she’s quick. Smart. Capable. More used to fighting alone, or in guerrilla strike-tactics, but she’s getting better at being the aggressor. At fighting in the open with groups of people with different training than hers.

She does what she thinks is right. Always. Even if it’s something she doesn’t want.

That’s good. She’s good.

“Yes.” Bull answers before his mind can fully catch up. “She’s my boss. And I’m glad she is. I’d rather her being the one working with the Inquisition than some other guy. She’s – she’s.”

He searches his mind for the word as Josephine searches him for lies.

“She’s _charismatic_.” The word doesn’t settle right. But it’s as close as he can think.

Josephine continues to look him over. But nods.

“Yes. That’s one word for it.” She muses. “Thank you, the Iron Bull. I shall be seeing you around.”

-

Lavellan disappears once they finally make it back to Skyhold. In between the chaos of sorting out where the Wardens will stay, sending back all the siege equipment, dealing with their wounded, their dead, taking stock of everything, she vanishes.

Bull is dead tired, and practically dead on his feet but his heart still pounds like crazy when the news reaches him.

“Fuck.” He mutters. “Can’t one thing go right?”

“Apparently not.” Cullen says, looking about as dead on the outside as Bull feels on the inside. Bull doesn’t even know how Cullen’s _awake_. “We’ve got the inside of the castle covered. Could you help searching the paths outside? There’s a storm coming in. If she’s out there, we want her found and brought back inside the walls before it hits.”

“Yeah. Got you.” Bull says and feels like shit when he wakes up his guys who really need a rest after the fight and ride they’ve had, but they’re amiable enough when he tells them what’s going on.

“Maybe she just needs to be away.” Dalish says.

“Yeah. Maybe.” Bull agrees. He can understand wanting to be away. “But not in the mountains when it’s about to storm.”

Bull goes out to look for her along the ice lake and waterfall in Skyhold’s shadow, underneath the area where the Blacksmith’s place would be.

“She wants to be alone.” Bull swears, fist already swinging before he can think. Cole appears on his other side. “But if it’s you – I think it’ll be okay. She needs someone right now. She doesn’t realize it, but she does. It can’t be me. I’m not – I’m not right for it. Not yet. I can’t.”

Cole mutters something furiously under his breath before disappearing. Bull sighs.

One problem child at a time, he guesses.

Cole is more Varric’s and Solas’ than his, anyway.

Bull is careful as he makes his way across the ice – frozen solid, but it never hurts to be careful anyway – and finds her hidden behind some icicles in a cave close to the waterfall. It’s freezing, even Bull feels his teeth starting to chatter a little.

He doesn’t realize it’s her at first. Not until she looks up at him and he sees.

It’s like when they were in the valley of the Avaar.

But this time she isn’t a bird.

She’s a doe. Pale skinned with lines and dots that kind of look like her vallaslin. She raises her head and watches him approach.

He’s careful as he eases himself down on the ice close to her. He won’t fit in that little cave.

Lavellan watches him and makes a soft, pained noise – is she hurt – then lowers her head and closes her eyes.

He sits there in the silence, underneath the roar of the waterfall for what feels like hours. He can taste the storm coming in.

“We need to move.” He tells her. “I know you’re hurting, and I know  it’s hard. I know you don’t want to. But we have to get out of the storm.”

Lavellan raises her head and she stretches her neck out to touch her nose to the raised skin on his arm. Her breath is warm.

Then she rises, graceful and somehow melancholy and _shakes_.

A wolf stands in her place and she moves, pushing her head underneath Bull’s palm and walks over him, chuffing.

Bull stands, ass and legs a numb as he stumbles. Lavellan is there, underneath his hand. They make it back to Skyhold together.

He’s about to announce to the gate guards that he found her when her jaws close around his hand. Not biting, just holding.

He glances at her from the corner of his eye.

“She’s probably inside, you know how big this place is. There are still parts we haven’t even figured out how to get to, yet.” He says. “C’mon, let me in. It’s freezing.”

When he looks down she’s gone, and he hears the flapping of wings.

Bull finds her, next, in the Inquisitor’s tower.

A doe, again, curled up in one of the storage closets. She makes the same sound again.

“Alright. Alright. I’m here.” Bull says, mostly closing the door and moving to lie down on the couch next to the stairs. “I’m not leaving you.”

he must fall asleep, because he wakes up to her – a girl again, now – crawling over him, freezing. He puts his hands on her, rubbing her arms, her back.

“Fuck.” He says.

“So many people died.” She whispers as he sits up, picking her up and moving her to the bed. He pulls all the blankets off and wraps them around her, setting her down. She looks up at him. “And it was all on me. I did that. _I told them to die_.”

“No. That’s war.” Bull says. “They fought for what they believed in.”

“They’re gone. I knew some of them. Did you see Varric’s face when he realized? _That’s me_.” Her voice breaks. Bull takes her chin in his hands.

“No.” He says.

“How can I look at him – look at any of them, now?” Her voice trembles. She isn’t crying. Yet. Bull pulls her close and she presses her face against his chest. “I – I don’t know where to go from here. How do I face them? I can’t – it’s all so much. And then there’s – there’s so much to do, still. So much to bring them through. And there’s Cassandra’s Seekers, and the lyrium, _Samson_  – Samson. There’s still _Samson_. And the Wardens. How do I even try a Warden? The Wardens _saved us so many times_. And everyone is mad because I let them stay and – and I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t. I’m scared. I know I have to, I know I can’t be scared, but I am and I don’t know how to stop. What if I’m the mistake?”

“No.” Bull says, holding her by the shoulders. “You aren’t. And it’s hard right now. It’s always hard after a battle. But you can’t go off like that. Alright? You ever feel like that – overwhelmed like that – you don’t just leave without telling anyone. You come. You find me. Whatever, whenever. You _come find me_. You hear me? You understand? You don’t run off. You come find me. And you talk to me. We work this out. Together. And if you don’t want to talk to me, fine. You get Cole. Solas. Dorian. _Whoever_. And you talk to them. You tell them if you want to be alone, you tell them what you’re thinking. You tell them so we know.  One thing at a time. Understand?”

Lavellan nods.

“I couldn’t hold my shape.” She says. “I couldn’t hold Lavellan.”

Bull can understand some of that.

“Alright. And now?”

“It’s _hard_.”  Her voice cracks. “It’s easier to be a wolf. To be a doe. A bird. No one wants anything from me.”

“Yeah.” Bull squeezes her shoulders. “It’s hard. We need you. We need a lot from you. You remember what I said in Haven? About leaders?”

She nods. “Yes.”

“There’s a reason why they picked you.” He brushes a strand of hair from her face. “It’s hard. And – you’ll grow into it. You might not like it. And that’s shit luck. But that’s how things are right now. We need you. I need you. You don’t have to keep it together. You just need to be here. Don’t leave us.”

“I would come back.” She says, looking away.

“I believe you. Talk to me. We’re going to sort this out. We’re going to make a plan of attack. It doesn’t all have to be on you. Leading is making decisions. Leading is also knowing when to look to others for help. It’s knowing when to say that you can’t do something. It’s not running off and being quiet about it.”

“I’m sorry I frightened you.” She says, and she takes his hand in hers, hands folding over his skin like teeth. “Did I hurt you? Earlier?”

“No.” He says. “Not then. Not there.”

-

“It is because you love her that you want to leave her. You don’t want to love her, because it means admitting, admittance, admiration. Things you aren’t ready for.”

“If I’m not ready for it, why are you telling me?”

“Because it’s inside of you. It wants to come out. It wants to be free.”

“Ever consider, Cole, that there’s a reason why it _isn’t_ free?”

Cole is quiet, seems to be actually considering it and that maybe Bull can get the hell away from this conversation but then he shakes his head.

“No. It’s not dangerous. It isn’t. I don’t understand why you think it is. How could it be? Don’t you remember that feeling, to be released from so much stone? A statue, finally seen. Brought out of marble. Don’t you want that?”

He thinks of _her_ and this. His boys. His people. He thinks of this place, the sky that goes on forever, and he thinks about the way her mouth is slack in sleep and the way she smiles at flowers that are half-way open and whispers to them words of encouragement.

_The world is so beautiful, little one. It can’t wait to see you. You’ll love the sun and the rain and all the things in the sky. I can’t wait to see you open, bloom._

“She can’t wait to see you, bloom.” Cole says.

“Knock it off, Cole. I’m warning you.” Bull rolls his neck.

“She wants you.” Cole whispers. “Waits for you. Watches for you. The same way you watch, wait, want her. You both see it. Both know it. She doesn’t realize why you hold back. That final step. You are the Iron Bull. Why won’t you claim that?”

Bull tosses his head, hears the rattle of chains.

“They don’t have to be.”

“ _Cole_.”

“You aren’t ready for it because you _think_ you don’t deserve it. That you’re doing her a favor. That you’re doing the world a favor. You’re wrong.” Cole continues. “Your Tama would be happy for you.”

“ _Don’t_.” Bull reaches out to grab Cole. He doesn’t know what he’d do – he just – he just needs Cole to stop.

“You can’t make it go away.” Cole says, and he touches Bull’s arm the way Lavellan did so long ago. Hands on either side of the bone, fingers running parallel with veins. “Your hands, they were warm. And she was so cold. _You made it safe again_. She doesn’t realize – and neither do you – _she was always safe with you_.”

-

“Welcome to the Inquisition.” She says, coming to stand directly in front of him. She looks up at him, curious and excited. No trace of nerves or suspicion – fear. Brave kid. Bull crosses his arms and looks down at her. He’s seen her running around Haven. Talking to the herbalist, chatting up the quartermaster, sitting on the wall and watching the soldiers.

In her own way, she is sort of a spy of her own.

She pulls a lot of information out of people. He’s listened to her talk to Krem. She knows the questions to ask. She knows how to ask them. And most people wouldn’t even figure out what kind of stuff they’re just giving away.

“Thanks.” He says, and Lavellan shifts her weight – like the wind, never really still except for when you don’t want it to be – as she looks, examines, him. Up close for the first time.

The Storm Coast doesn’t count. Rain and formalities, trying to impress each other, first impressions, the pressure to make an image.

Now he’s signed on. The pressure is off.

He doesn’t have to convince her of anything, and neither does she.

She doesn’t have to pretend.

She examines him and he lets her for a while.

“Anything I can do for you?” He asks as her eyes flick from scar to scar.

“May I ask you questions?” She asks, eyes flicking to his face. “I have never met a Qunari – of the race or of the culture. I’ve asked a lot but no one really knows anything.”

“Sure.” Bull waits because he knows the questions. There are always questions about the Qun. He’s used to it. He wonders which one she’ll ask first. About the mages or the sex or the women or the war.

She raises her hand, and he stills as she reaches out to touch his arm. Except she doesn’t. Her hand stops, hovers, a foot away from him before she pulls her hand back, chewing on her bottom lip.

“I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to touch people without permission.” She says. “I forget sometimes. I just – aren’t you cold? Do Qunari run a lot warmer than humans and elves? You don’t even have goose bumps. You aren’t shivering. I have magic so I can make myself as warm as I need when I need to, like now, but you don’t have magic. Why aren’t you cold?”

Bull blinks.

“We do run hotter.” Bull replies, and he holds out his arm to her. She looks at him, uncertain before she touches the skin of his forearm with her fingertips, and when he doesn’t do anything she uses both hands to circle  his forearm, fingertip to fingertip. Her finger are long and thin, chilly without gloves.

The anchor makes his skin look strange. He can sort of feel it, like a pulse – more irregular, fainter – against the side of his arm as she runs her palms up and down his forearm.

“Warm.” She whispers, amazed, “And these tattoos – do they mean things? Like mine do? Do the Qunari tattoos mean things? Or are they just for looks? For rank? Are they marks of age, of honor?”

They talk for a long time, maybe two hours in the snow underneath the breach about this and that, things Qunari, things Dalish, things human, things none of the above. The questions he expects come, they always do, but even he finds that he has a hard time tracking them. They come and he answers, and he finds himself in the middle of giving the answer he shouldn’t be giving even as he gives it.

Clever bas, he thinks as someone calls her attention and she waves to them.

“Thank you for speaking with me, the Iron Bull.” She says, careful with the article. He nods at her.

“Anytime. I’ll be here.”

-

“If it was you, I would not have been able to fight you at all.” She admits. Seasons come, seasons go.

It’s been a long, long time since he’s last seen her.

He misses her. The way she was, the way she could have been. Sometimes, he thinks he sees glimpses of her. Maybe it’s just hope. Maybe his eye isn’t as good as it used to be.

“If it was you, there. Instead of him.” She continues, “I do not think I would have even been able to speak.”

To this day, she has not told anyone about what she and Solas spoke of in those few minutes between _here and back again_.

He doesn’t think she ever will. There are some things, that like the dead and the rotten, are meant to stay undisturbed. Graves and tombs. Untouched, left to dust and remembrance.

“If it was you, I think I would have fallen. No matter what anyone else wanted from me, needed from me. I would not have been able to even open my mouth to say a single thing.” She says. slowly reaching over to curl her fingers around two of his own. “They would have fought you. And you would have cut them down. And I would have stood there, unable to think, as everything we once worked for fell apart about my ears. And when you were done with them, you would turn on me, and I would wait there for it. Because I would not be able to do anything else.”

“But it wasn’t me.” He says.

“No.” She breathes. “And if there are any gods at all, they showed me mercy in making it him instead of you. It hurts, still, always and forever. What he has done to me, what he continues to do to me. But him – him I always knew I would lose. Him I always knew there would be some sort of parting.”

“I’m with you.”

“Yes. A foreign branch grafted onto my tree. Part of me.” She squeezes his fingers. “If it was you, the Iron Bull. I would have fallen. I would not have gotten up.”

“It wasn’t.” He repeats. “Not then. Not today. Not ever.”

“A promise.” She says, and he reaches over to pull at the string and dragon’s tooth he knows is braided in her hair, just behind her ear. She smiles. “Yes.”

-

“You’re making god-killing into a habit.” Bull muses.

“I’m not killing Solas. And he isn’t a god.” She snaps. Bull raises his eyebrows at her. She turns away, grasping at the hand with the Anchor and squeezing. She hisses and the Anchor flares so bright it hurts Bull’s eye, forcing him to turn away.

“Let me.” He holds out his hand to her. She turns away, holding the Anchor to her chest.

“It’s fine.” She grinds out.

“ _Kadan_.” He says and she makes a sharp sound in the back of her throat, then holds her hand out to him, whining a little when he pries her fingers open.

“Damn.” The Anchor is large. Larger than he thought. Larger than last time. And he can see it _pulsing_. There are minor cracks and fractures around it, too. Like her skin is shattering open, peeling back. Unable to contain what was part of her for so long, now. What she’s made hers.

“It’s fine. It does that sometimes.” She says. Bull holds her wrist in one hand and carefully starts pushing her sleeve up with the other. “Bull – please.”

Bull feels his lips press tighter together as he reveals more of her skin. The cracks are running up her arm, illuminating her veins and spreading through her like roots.

“It wasn’t this bad before.” He says. He would have known. He would have _seen_.

“It only looks bad.” She says. “It’s – it’s fine. It’s just. Growing. A little.”

He presses down on the faintest edge of the smallest crack and Lavellan hisses, kneels buckling as she cries out.

“This. Is not. _Fine_.” Bull grinds out. Lavellan weakly attempts to pull her hand free. He looks into her face, how pale it is, the bags under her eyes, the strain. The _pain_.

“You. Are not fine. None of this is fine. Did you tell anyone?”

Lavellan looks away.

“What did I tell you?” He can feel his temper rising. It’s always so hard when it comes to her. She makes everything _more_. Too strong. Too potent. Sometimes he hates it. He used to be better.

He used to be numb.

“I – “ She says. Closes her mouth. “The Iron Bull. It’s not – it’s not good. There’s nothing anyone can do. There’s no point in telling anyone.”

“What do you _mean_ nothing anyone can do? What are you – “ Bull looks at the spreading Anchor. In the three months he’s been gone, it’s gotten this far.

“The more rifts I absorb, the more I use it the  more it grows. The stronger it gets.” She says. “Or at least. That’s what I thought. I’m not – I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore.”

“Explain.”

“It won’t stop.” She whispers. “It won’t stop growing. Spreading. I thought it was the branch grafted onto me. But maybe – maybe I’m just the branch that got grafted onto _it_.”

Bull stares at the fractures of light in her skin. “No.”

She closes her eyes.

“ _No_.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. Don’t you fucking apologize – why are you apologizing. Why didn’t you tell anyone? Dorian? Vivienne? Any one of the mages at Skyhold? _Did you even let anyone try to fix it_?”

“Bull – stop.” She tugs at her wrist and Bull forces himself to let go of her before he breaks something. She rubs her wrist and cries out as the Anchor flickers again, a flash of light crackling out, and stinging Bull across the cheek. She looks at him, his cheek, hand cradled to her chest and so much pain and apologies on her face that Bull wants to punch something. Hard. With all his strength. “There is _nothing_ to be _done_.”

“You aren’t going to try.” Bull says.

“No.” She shakes her head, and looks at her hand. “I’m – something is going to end here, at this meeting, Bull. The Inquisition, myself, I don’t know. But things aren’t going to be the same. And maybe that’s for the best.”

Bull doesn’t even know where to start with this.

“Maybe they’re right.” She reaches out and touches his cheek, fingertips over the place the Anchor struck him. “Maybe I’m not doing what I’m supposed to anymore. And maybe, like the original Inquisition, it’s time for me to lay down my arms. Maybe the wicked really do get to rest after all.”

“No.” Bull shakes his head. “Kadan.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is steady. Strong. “Thank you, for carrying me all this way.”

-

Once, in between the fever dreams he has sleeping off the last of the assassin’s poison, he dreams. It’s a scarily coherent dream.

It is the thing in the stone, the chains. It’s arm is free and it’s his arm. Tattoos and scars and all. It claws at the stone, ripping entire chunks off as it fights to carve itself to freedom.

Lavellan sits at the base of the stone, chips of rock and chain flying as the monster claws its way out, some of them just barely missing her. Its claws sometimes bash at the stone close to her, but she doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch.

She sits there, calm, serene, leaning against the stone, like she’s sleeping. Curled at the base of it as all of this is going on around her.

Bull tries to go to her, to get her away from that thing – from him – but every step feels like he’s walking through knee-deep tar or sludge.

He calls for her.

The monster within roars and shakes the stone with the force of the sound. She can’t hear him.

She stirs, just a little, and opens her eyes. She sees him. She smiles.

 _Get away from that, it’s dangerous._ He yells. _Get the fuck away from that_.

She shakes her head and puts her finger to her lips. _Shh._

He keeps yelling and it feels like he’s actually going backwards.

The monster rips at stone like it’s fucking paper and every time its hand gets close to her face he feels himself rattling with energy, rage, uselessness.

Don’t hurt her.

She turns and kisses the stone, even as a large hand descends and fucking rips a chunk out of rock right next to her head. She turns back to him.

 _Watch_ , she says, _you’re about to be born_.

No, he denies. That is not me. It can’t be me. I’m not that thing.

Except that he is.

 _Watch_ , she commands and he can’t not listen to her. Not even in his sleep. So he has to watch as she sits there, her body almost torn to shreds with every blow the monster delivers to the stone keeping it away.

Bull is so close, if he could just _grab_ her and go -

The hand descends.

She closes her eyes.

Bull _bellows_.

The chains break and a huge chunk of rock falls away, rumbling as it hits the ground. The hand rests on her throat, relaxed, gentle, cupping her throat, and tilting her face up. A thumb slides over her jaw. And a part of the monster’s face – his face – is free, along with a shoulder and chest. The stone creaks and it – he – looks down at her.

And it speaks.

Bull wakes up before he can hear what it says. But he knows exactly what word is used.

He rubs his chest, sweat and pain. The Iron Bull is dead. The Iron Bull is born again.

No more lies.

-

“Looking cozy.” Bull drawls, opening the door to Dorian’s room and smirking at the two on the bed.

Lavellan makes a soft noise of acknowledgement before rolling over and stealing half the blankets as she curls up against the wall. Dorian groans, arm over his face as he attempts to grab some back.

“Nice.” Bull says, nodding at exposed skin.

“Shut up. Please. Don’t you have better place to be?”

“It smells like a brewery in here.” Bull says, going to the window and throwing it open. A cold breeze blows in and Dorian swears, and Lavellan sneezes. Bull leans against the wall next to the window and watches them fight over covers. “So this is where you’ve been going.”

“You’ve been having _company_.” Lavellan says. “And Dorian has nice blankets.”

“Glad to know I’m second place.” Dorian snorts, succeeding in yanking some blankets back from her. “We’re never drinking with Cassandra or Sera again. I need you to remember this for me. I’m too hung over to remember important life decisions.”

“I take it this means you two made up.” Bull guesses as Lavellan pats around for her dress. Bull picks it up off the foot board and hands it to her.

“Please, for the love of all that’s holy, _keep your voice down_.” Dorian hisses.

Lavellan crawls out of the covers, pulling the dress on over her head, and only getting a little bit stuck part-way through. She waves her arms a little. Bull yanks it down and is proud that he doesn’t hear anything rip.

Lavellan’s head pops out and her hair looks like a rat nested in it.

Lavellan yawns.

“Dorian,” She says, “I’m hungry. Let’s get breakfast, please.”

“Leave me here to die.” Dorian says. “Or go make the big one useful and get it for us.”

“Nope.” Bull says. “You two were the ones who got drunk. Deal with it.”

Lavellan makes a _face_.

Bull holds up his hands and shakes his head.

Lavellan sighs and slowly climbs over Dorian and off the bed.

“Why is it always so hot at night and so cold in the morning?” She asks as she looks around for her leggings. “Dorian, I’m borrowing your wrap.”

“Don’t stain it. It’s a bitch to clean.” Dorian mumbles, rolling onto his face and pulling the covers over his head.

Lavellan pulls Dorian’s jacket around her shoulders and slowly meanders towards the door. Bull watches her go.

“She was really worried about you.” He says once he’s fairly certain she’s out of earshot.

Dorian groans. “She didn’t take you with her.”

Bull raises an eyebrow at the lump. Dorian sighs.

“Look. I had – it’s hard for me. Alright? And I love her and she’s my best friend in possibly all of Thedas, but there are just some things she doesn’t get. And you know how talking to her can be, sometimes. She doesn’t think like most people do and it makes it hard for her to understand why other people get upset.”

“Yeah.” Bull agrees. Which is why he told her to lay off Dorian for a while. She mostly listened. “You two going to be alright?”

“Why? Worried I might be her favorite again? Of course we’re alright. Did you not hear the part about how _she’s my best friend in all of Thedas_?”

-

“Him.” Bull says, as he bathes her, small between his legs, her back against his chest. He’s sure that half of the Orlesian court’s tongues are about to fall out from the gossip, but right now he couldn’t give two shits about it.

The stump is raw and sensitive to the touch.

She allows him to hold it and clean it, her face turned away from both it and him.

“It was always him.” She whispers, voice a croak, a creak. She hasn’t spoken coherently like this in days. The nightmares, the aftermath of nightmares, doesn’t count.

Not to Bull, at least.

“Him.” He repeats, bitter and angry, burning inside out. Rage caught in his chest like a bone lodged in the throat. “All this for _him_. That traitorous piece of lying _shit_.”

“Yes.” Her remaining hand, the remaining spider, curls over his thigh, “All this. For him.”

“ _Why?”_ Bull asks, and it takes a lot of control not to make fists, not to tense and turn into the Iron he names himself after. She doesn’t need iron right now. She needs flesh and blood and heart. She needs him.

“Because,” She says, curling her arm around her middle. “He was the one I knew I couldn’t keep.”

Bull lower his hands from the stump and tries to look her in the face.

She closes her eyes and denies him access.

She curls her knees to her chest, arm around her legs, stump still held out and away from herself, but the arm starts to tremble with strain. Bull gently, carefully, cups her bicep, keeps his fingers as far away from the swollen, angry ends of the vallaslin and flesh and bone and scar as he can.

He carries the weight of it.

“Out of all of you,” She continues, “Out of all of you. He was the one I knew I would not keep. Sera wants me with her Jennies, even when I told her I wasn’t sure if I could do what her people do, she said that they would stand with me anyway. That I could be her friend, their friend, without being a Friend of Jenny. Varric gave me a house. A house and a title, a place in Kirkwall. Dorian – Dorian is my best friend. A gift I never knew I would receive. We will be in each other’s thoughts and hearts until we die. We are parts of each other’s stories, him and I. Cole – Cole, is _Cole_. He is with me even when he isn’t. As I am with him. Our spirits touched, we are linked, taking pieces of each other where ever we go.”

Lavellan presses her forehead to her knees.

“You – you I keep. A promise.”

Bull’s free hand rises to  gently slide his fingers over the front of her throat.

“Kadan,” He presses his mouth to the crown of her head.

“The others – the others are not mine to keep.” She says. “And we would be friends, companions, allies, and we would part our ways and it would sting but it would fade. I never kept them, and they did not keep me, and we stood side by side, shadows touching at the edge of the day. But him.”

She shivers and breathes and turns her head to the side to look at the stump.

“Him – from the moment I met him. I knew that I could never keep him. He claimed me as _da’len_ and I claimed him as _hahren_ and maybe it was my mistake to do that. Was it my mistake, Bull? I claimed him and was claimed by him, and we both knew that he would not stay. I knew that no matter what happened, he would leave and he would take everything with him and I would never see him again. He would walk out of my life, and he would not try to come back.”

She looks over her shoulder at him.

“I did not want him to go. I wanted him to stay. I wanted him to – at the very least – face me and tell me he was leaving. Tell me goodbye. He didn’t let me.”

Her gaze slowly moves towards the stump, where the lines of her tattoos stop, abrupt against scar tissue. Angry red and pink and purple. Stitches black and stark against her skin.

“He just took. And took. And took.” Lavellan touches her fingertips to the scar tissue. “The wolf put his jaws on me and I let it happen, the Iron Bull. Why did I let it happen?”

“Because you love him.” Bull answers, and wishes he was wrong. There’s too much love in his girl. This girl. Too much of it. It’s killing her.

“ _Why_?” She asks, voice cracking. “Why did I love him?”

“Because he made you promises.”

“Like I make you promises?” Her voice shatters. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m not like him.” Bull says, closing his hand around her arm. So thin. So small. So young. “I’m not him. I won’t leave. I’m staying. As long as you need me. Longer than that. You have me.”

He spreads his free hand over her breast, over her heart.

“Kadan.” He says, cheek against the top of her head. “ _I’m here_.”

“You.” She whispers, voice facing as she turns away from the stump, from him. 

“Yeah. Me.”

“You, I get to keep.” She says, and her voice falls away. “A promise.”

“Kadan.” He repeats, and her hand touches his against her chest.

“Okay.” She whispers, uncurling, and letting her head rest against his chest. “Okay.”

-

Bull finds her sitting on top of a tree branch, looking out over the valley as scouts work on building and repairing tree houses in the trees behind her. She and Cole are sitting next to each other, not talking or looking or touching each other. Just sitting and watching the valley. Bull cranes his neck to see them and waits for one or both of them to acknowledge him.

Neither does.

“Nice view?” He asks, voice breaking through the silence.

Cole disappears between one heartbeat and the next, and Bull has to shake the uncomfortable feeling of _absence_ he gets whenever the kid gets that.

Lavellan looks down at him and smiles.

“It’s beautiful here, the Iron Bull.” She says, laughter that he’s missed at the edges of her eyes and mouth. “I can _be_ here.”

There’s so much weight to the word. Unfamiliar and touching at the edge of something he doesn’t know.

“Yeah?”

She turns to look back at the construction, then down at him.

“Can you keep a secret, the Iron Bull?” She says, “For you and me? The two of us and Cole – since Cole knows everything?”

Bull tilts his head.

“I keep a lot of secrets, Boss. I can keep a few of yours, too, if you want.”

She smiles, and she tips back and falls, and Bull feels his body lurch forward to try and catch her – but she does not appear. Instead a crow flies out from between the branches, and up to the clear blue sky. Squinting, Bull sees – the faintest glitter of electric green from the tips of its right wing.

“Damn.” Bull breathes, and the crow caws and flies until she’s almost out of his sight, before turning around to slowly glide back.

The crow perches on the branches above his head, looking down on him with eyes that are strange and familiar at once. The feathers of her wing glitter.

She could fly away from all this, he realizes. Just keep on flying and flying. Forever.

Bull holds out his hand for her.

She glides down to him, landing on his arm, surprisingly heavy. She spreads her wings for balance, and clicks her beak at his face.

“Impressive.” Bull says.

She came back. She stayed.

His brave girl.

-

Bull is fairly sure that Dennet will skin him alive and mount his head on a wall. No one should ever ride a horse this harshly.

In his defense – and he’s pretty sure it’s damned good defense -

The shit that went down at the Temple of Mythal was a thousand times worse than the shit at Adamant.

He makes it back before most everyone else, and he blows through Skyhold looking for her. He’s pretty sure that sometimes he wasn’t even yelling for her by name, by title, or in any words at all. Just sounds.

 _Kadan_ , he thinks, when he finally finds her, in the room with that fucking _mirror_.

She’s sitting on the floor, but as soon as the door opens, she turns, and she sees him. And she scrambles to her feet and races to him, and he opens his arms and picks her up and she squeezes his neck and her face presses against his skin.

“Kadan.” He breathes her in, the clean smell of her skin, grass, books, leather, sunshine, the musk of her stag. Blood. Salt. Skin. “ _Kadan_.”

“I made a mistake.” She whispers. “I’ve ruined it.”

“What? Tell me.” He says, pulling away from her and setting her down.

Her eyes shine, tears welling up – old, not new. He can see it. Anger and defeat, shame and regret, humiliation and violence in her shoulders as she turns towards the mirror. A kind of longing Bull can’t even begin to describe.

“I gave it up.” She says. “And I’ve destroyed it all. It wasn’t hers, it was _mine_. I earned it. It was my right. But I gave it to her – why would I do that? What have I done?”

Her hands grasp for him and he takes her hands in his.

“What are you talking about? What happened?”

“It was knowledge.” She says, turning away from the mirror. “The Well of Sorrows was the gift of knowledge. All the knowledge of the People from before the fall. The guardians of Mythal. She walked the earth. She was real. She put them there. She left them – the Well – there. And _I gave it away_.”

Her voice breaks and she closes her eyes.

“Everyone said it was the right thing to do – Solas, Cassandra, Dorian. But – but _I wanted it_. I wanted it and I should have said yes. Kept it for myself. The knowledge of my people – but now it’s _in her hands_.” Lavellan takes her hands away from him. “The Iron Bull – what have I done? Why did I listen to them? Why didn’t I listen to myself? Why didn’t I follow my heart? Now it’s all gone.”

She turns to the mirror, and walks towards it until she can put her hands on either side of the frame. Her reflection is tinted, distorted – and Bull can sort of see vague images of trees and stone where there shouldn’t be anything but him and her.

“You did what you had to do.” He says, following after her and putting a hand on her shoulder. “I can’t tell you what you should have or shouldn’t have done. I wasn’t there. But the choice has been made. And you have to live with it.”

“What if I can’t?” Her voice cracks, shame and hurt and longing.

“You already are.”

-

“We talked about this.” Bull calls out as he climbs the ladder of the Mage Tower a few hours later, the trap door to the rooftop already propped a little bit open. “The string means you can’t come in. I’m with someone. Remember?”

“You told me,” She replies. He throws the trap door open and braces his arms on the stone to pull himself up. She’s sitting between the merlons, straddling the crenel, hands at her sides. There’s a candle by her foot. “To go to you. No matter what. Whenever. I’m sorry. I know. But you told me and I promised.”

Whatever irritation he had at being interrupted with Merissa earlier vanishes. He looks her over, the way the wind crushes her nightdress against her, and the thick fur she’s wrapped around her shoulders, the way her hair flies up here, in the clouds. And the kind of shaking that isn’t shivering but nerves.

“Adamant?” He asks, the last of the Wardens arrived today. But Lavellan shakes her head.

“Haven. Sort of.” She puts her palms together, head lowered. Shaken. Nerves and the rattling of dreams. “You, mostly. I saw you on the destroyer as it sank.”

Bull breathes and runs a hand over his head, moving to lean against the merlon next to her. The flickering torches from below create small circles and half-shadows in the night. The light from the windows of the Herald’s Rest and Great Hall shine brighter than the rest. From here, Bull can even see that Cullen is still working.

“Are you alright? It’s fine. It’s good. I told you to come. You listened.”

“I interrupted. I know that the string means you’re busy. I saw it.” She picks at a crack in the stone with her fingernail. “And I didn’t want to, but you told me to go to you. And I knew you’d know if I didn’t, and you’d be upset with me more about that than if I interrupted. I’m sorry. Did you get to finish?”

“No.” Bull shakes his head. “Most people can’t really get back into it after being walked in on by someone. Someone like you.”

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Don’t be.” Bull leans down and tips her face up. “I’m always here for you. You know that.”

She reaches up and tangles her fingers in the chord around his neck.

He pulls at the chord in her hair.

“I was at Haven. But it wasn’t Haven.” She says. “I was – I was a bear. And I watched as Haven fell. I watched you all die. I couldn’t take it. I ran. I turned and ran into the forest, still a bear. But when I came out of the forest it was not the Frostbacks. I was at the coast. And still, a bear, I stood at the edge of the cliff and saw the destroyer. You were on it. You were standing at the front, looking back at me. As if you knew me. And I thought I heard you speak. I went to you, I wanted to – but I couldn’t. I watched you watching me watch you die.”

“The Iron Bull of the Qun is dead.” He says. “And you did kill him. But I, the Iron Bull of the Chargers, am alive. And you made that happen.”

“I know.” Lavellan says, turning towards the courtyard. “I don’t regret it. Not at all. I don’t regret any of it. But it scared me. The dream. I just – I had to see you. To make sure you were still here. That’s all. I’m fine, now.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“You want me to sleep with you for the rest of the night?”

“No.” Lavellan shakes her head. “Thank you. I’m riding out early.” She gives him a small smile. “Cole’s been having this – this feeling. And he’s been – upset since Adamant. The sooner we get it sorted the better. I’m worried for him.”

“You’re worried for all of us.”

“Yes. But at the moment, I’m worried most about Cole. Just by a hair.” She stretches her foot out and touches the side of his thigh with her heel. “I’m sorry I disturbed you, the Iron Bull.”

-

He wakes up and her side of the bed is empty. He spreads his hand across and it’s cold.

Where did she go?

He gets up and gets dressed, squinting as he walks out into the early morning sunlight. He goes down to the training yard, Cullen is already barking orders and corrections, body angled away from the ring as he accepts the seemingly perpetual line of messages sent from every corner of the map.

“You seen the boss?” He asks.

Cullen doesn’t even look at the ring when he snaps - “You planning on losing your arm with your sword? What’s that in your other hand, a wheel of cheese? _Use that shield_.” Cullen waves a messenger away and looks at him, eyebrow raised.

“She rode out this morning, before dawn with Cassandra, Sera, and Vivienne. You didn’t know? They’re going to the Coast.”

Bull blinks. “What _for_?”

There’s nothing at the coast. They busted the red lyrium trade, the Blades haven’t been causing trouble, and there’s nothing else that’s there for them.

Cullen looks at him like he’s asked something strange.

“You didn’t know? Well – I suppose if you did you would have tried to go with her. Odd.” Cullen frowns. “She went to fight a dragon. I did think it was strange that she wasn’t bringing you, but I thought you had – for some strange and inexplicable reason – said no this time.”

It’s Bull’s turn to give Cullen a look.

“One, I’d never say  no to fighting a dragon, especially not with the boss. Two – she wouldn’t go without me anyway. You sure?”

“I’m certain.” Cullen looks confused. “She’s been planning this for about three weeks. You really didn’t know?”

“No.” Bull says, an uncomfortable feeling sliding through his ribs.

Cullen turns to full face him. “Bull, she can take care of yourself. This isn’t her first dragon fight. She’ll be back by the end of the week with another trophy and more dragon parts than we could possibly know what to do with.”

“Yeah.” Bull says, forcing himself not to turn to look in the direction of the bridge. “Sure. No, I got you. She’ll be fine.”

-

“No one’s watching.” Lavellan says, pulling at his hand. “And who cares? It’s over. We’re done here. I’ve danced with someone who tried to murder me. And I practiced for _months_. I want to dance with _you_.”

Bull groans, “ _Boss_.”

“Give the lady what she _wants_.” Dorian calls from somewhere above them. “No one else gets to dance with her until you do. You’re holding up the line.”

“The kid just saved the Orlesian empire from collapse, Tiny. Is a dance really so hard?” Varric says.

Bull groans. “I’m shit at this.”

Lavellan tugs at his hands and he sighs because Dalish and Rocky have started singing somewhere in the background.

“I’m waiting for _my_ dance.” Sera says. “Hurry it the fuck up already, would you? I want to dance with the Herald of Andraste.”

Lavellan makes a face, “I keep telling her to stop calling me that.”

Bull snorts. “That only makes her do it more, you know.”

“I know.” Lavellan sighs, then lightly steps onto his feet. “There, now we can both be terrible at this in the same way.”

“There’s no getting out of this.” Leliana says.

“Is there anyone,” Bull calls out as he awkwardly starts guiding them both into a simple waltz, “ _Anyone_ at all who came with us who’s actually doing their fucking job right now instead of making comments from the peanut gallery?”

“Nope.” Varric says.

“I’m pretty sure Josephine and her sister are still arguing over paint.” Cullen muses. “Does that count?”

-

“I saw you in the Fade.” Lavellan tells him, lifting the tent flap and crawling in to lie down on her side next to him. Her hands flex, restless. She has been ever since she came back. Bull doesn’t think he’d ever been so fucking relieved to see anyone in his life. “Yours – yours was the only one I didn’t read.”

“What?”

“Tombstone. I saw it, and I knew it was yours. And I looked away before I could see what it said.”

“What was on the others?”

“The things they were most afraid of.” She answers. “I read them all. Not yours.”

“Why?” He asks. He knows what she wants from him. He puts his arm over her, and she lets him.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.” She gnaws at the leather at her wrist. “I don’t want to know what you’re afraid of. Maybe I shouldn’t know. Maybe I wanted you to be the one to tell me. Maybe I already knew and didn’t want to see it. I’m not sure.”

“Thank you for not looking.” He says. “I don’t want to know, either. If you knew, I think I’d have to ask.”

She blinks, startled.

“You don’t know?”

“I know what I was once afraid of.” He says, careful to pick his words. “When I was the Iron Bull of the Qun. I knew, then. But now, I’m not sure. This Iron Bull isn’t – I don’t really know who this Iron Bull is. I’m learning. Just like you are.”

Lavellan falls quiet.

“I wanted you with me.” She admits. “I mean – it’s not that I didn’t trust the others. I do. I trust them. But – if it was you. I don’t know. I feel like – like maybe it would have been different. Maybe I would have been better.”

“I admit, I didn’t like that you didn’t choose me to go in with you. But it was a tactical choice. You needed people who were good with command on the walls. You needed people with experience in skirmishes leading and taking charge, making decisions for you where you weren’t. And the Inquisition isn’t so big or experienced yet to have enough of those people you could pick and choose who goes were. I get that. But I wanted to go with you, too. You scared the _shit_ out of me.”

“I scared the shit out of me, too.” She says.

“When we get back to Skyhold.” He tells her, moving his hand to cup her face, her throat. “We need to talk. You and me. Alright, Boss?”

He feels her breath stutter but she presses her lips together and nods.

“Good girl.” He brushes her hair from her face. “Tell me more about what the fuck happened out there.”

-

“You.” Bull says, catching Blackwall at the back of the stables, “Don’t get to talk to her that way. Not after the shit you pulled.”

Blackwall looks at him and Blackwall reluctantly respects that he got away with the lies for so long. That he chose to come clean. He does. He fooled both the Nightingale _and_ a former Ben-Hassrath spy. That takes at least some measure of skill and luck.

And balls.

Still -

Bull advances, and he doesn’t care what the fuck this looks like. Blackwall’s damn lucky that Bull doesn’t rip his tongue right out of his fucking head.

“You.” He repeats, fists closing with dead calm and certainty as Blackwall plants his feet and prepares to get hit. “Are an ungrateful, miserable bastard. What kind of asshole gets _a pardon_ , his life _spared_ , and his worthless existence _validated_ by one of the most admired, feared, and beloved people on the face of the planet and then _spits in her face_? The answer is _you_. You are that asshole. And I’ve been trying to figure out why the fuck you’d do that but I can’t.”

“Maybe because it’s the truth. The Inquisition can’t go around granting favors, pardoning people for crimes, lying – stealing – _cheating_. That’s not what it’s meant for.” Blackwall replies. “It’s not what _she_ is meant for.”

“You might be right.” Bull agrees, “But you don’t get to decide that. That isn’t your call. You don’t get to call her out on having _emotions_ and _feelings. You lost that right the second you turned tail and ran_.”

Bull wasn’t there when Lavellan found him. He wasn’t there when she found out the truth.

But Cole was and Cole is very, _very_ good at explaining, in very precise detail, a play-by-play of the kind of heartbreak a person can feel. Down to the last second.

Something – everything – kicks hard against Bull’s chest and threatens to burst out of his skin and beat Blackwall to an inch of his life.

Lavellan wants him alive.

His kadan wants this fucker alive, and she’ll get him alive.

“She considers you her _friend_. Trust me, if I could, I’d convince her not to.” Bull says. “I’m pretty sure most people here can’t believe that she still favors you, either. But she does. Nothing to be done about it. So _you_ better accept it like the rest of us have to and move on. You don’t take this second chance that she literally had to kill for and waste it. You don’t shit on this in front of her and make her regret it.”

“And maybe she _should_.” Blackwall snaps. “Maybe she should regret it. This isn’t what I wanted. I made a choice. And it’s a choice that I believe is right. Based on what she’s done – the kind of things she’s done. I can’t serve the Inquisition betraying those things with my very _existence_.”

“You made a choice. The original Blackwall made a choice. _She_ made a choice. Respect that.” Bull replies. “This is her choice. She chose you. And now _you_ have to live with that too. That someone, someone _very_ fucking important, felt that you were worth saving. And you can’t make her look bad. You think that what she did to save you is damaging? Think about what every action you take from now one will do to her.”

Blackwall glances away. Bull nods.

“Think on that. We’ve all made fresh starts here. With her. And it’s not as bad as you seem to think it is. You can live in the light. It takes adjusting. But it can be done. Take that from one liar to another.”

-

“It’s gone.” Lavellan says to him, one day. “I’m stuck, now.”

“What do you mean by that?” Bull asks, turning to her as she pushes hair from her face, looking calm and sanguine in ways she hasn’t been in months. Years. Peaceful.

“I can no longer take any other shape. It carries over.” She gestures with her stump. “I can no longer fly. Or run. I can no longer swim or hunt or stalk or climb. I am stuck in this skin. For the rest of my life.”

“Most people are.” Bull says, aware of the territory he walks on.

“I tasted the sky. Do you know what clouds feel like? What the sun is like so high up in the clouds? Have you ever caught a fish in your teeth, and felt it slap against your jaws? Have you ever slept in the leaves, in the grass, in the warmth of a hole you have dug yourself? Have you ever been hunted in the night, and run on legs so long you could leap over the world?” She reaches her hand out towards the horizon. “Have you ever run so far, so fast, that when you turn around you don’t even know where you came from? Have you ever ripped open a log to eat at a honey comb, and felt the wax between your teeth as you licked every sweet drop? I have. And now I can’t. I’ve tried. I can’t. I fall. I stumble. And it’s painful. Incredibly painful. Like I’m losing the arm over and over again.”

She lets her hand fall to her side.

“I tasted the sky. The sea. I was the forest. I was the mountain. When I couldn’t stand being a woman, I was those things. I spent winters as things on four legs. I spent summers in the sky. When I was hungry, I became small so it would hurt less. When I was afraid, I became bigger so I wouldn’t have to be. When I was lonely, I became something used to being alone. But now – I am this skin. Locked in it. Knowing, remembering. It’s still there – all of it is still there. But I can’t use it anymore.”

She closes her eyes and when she opens them they are strange and familiar.

“Sometimes I am snake. Sometimes I am doe. Sometimes I am bear. Raven. Wolf. More than I am myself. But I can’t reflect that. It’s over.”

“I’m sorry.” Bull says.

“Thank you.” She blinks and her eyes are elf again. “I just – I needed to say that. To someone. I’ve lost so many pieces of myself. I just needed to tell someone. You.”

-

“Blow the horn.” She says, voice soft underneath the waves and the wind and the rain. But louder than his heart.

Gatt looks at him, horror and surprise and the kind of betrayal Bull didn’t expect in his face.

Don’t be disappointed. Don’t be surprised. Don’t look at me like that. Bull wants to say – thinks. But his hand is already moving. The horn is at his lips.

His lungs are already calling the retreat.

Lavellan is a thin ghost-specter haunting his side as Gatt stares at him in growing disgust and disbelief.

Something inside of him – something inside works an arm loose from the iron and flexes, free. Something inside of him bellows and it writhes and it howls. A beast.

Tal-vashoth.

Perhaps this was what was in the stone. Not Ben-Hassrath, but traitor. Unclean.

Bull feels his mind retreating, packing everything up and away. Not for now. For later. It isn’t the place.

But Lavellan’s eyes are burning holes into the side of his head.

Burning holes into the links of the chain that keeps the unclean trapped in stone.

“They’re safe.” She says hours – eternity – later.

“And your name,” She whispers – he can’t remember turning away from the wreckage. He can’t remember leaving the storm coast. He can’t even remember getting on his horse. He remembers the blurry faces of his boys. His. Krem looks worried but relieved.

Did he know?

_Did he know?_

_If it wasn’t for her – you would be dead. I would have let you die_. Did you know?

“Your name,” She whispers to him as she passes on her stag to the front, the stag’s head held high and regal, the lightning creating sharp shadows through the points of his crown. “Is the Iron Bull. And you are _my liar_.”

The beast inside quiets. And it watches him through the cracks in its stone.

Then it says the word, and Bull shudders – _no_ and _yes_ and _of course_ all at once.

He’s always been shit at lying to himself.

-

“I wish it were you instead of me.” Lavellan whispers as she passes leans out the window above where he’s been stationed for the past half hour. “You’re better at this than I am.”

“Nah, they’re right. I’d put too many people on edge. I make you look bad enough as it is.” Bull says, digging the heel of his boot into the nice manicured garden soil a little. Just to get some dirt in the dirt. “You picked the right people. The rest of us’d look bad. Varric’s good at getting secrets out of people. And most people trust him. He’s that kind of person. Tevinter was born for this thing. It’s risky, but he can play the Game better than most of us. And Cassandra – she’s got weight to her. She might not like it, but she’s royalty _and_ a former hand of the Divine. She can get things done. You need them in there with you.”

“You’re my eyes.” She says.

“You’ve got plenty of good eyes with you. Get back to work, Boss. Things are good out here, so far.”

“Have you seen Sera? I tried finding her but I couldn’t. I’m worried.”

“Probably poking around the servants quarters. Or the nobles rooms.” Bull replies. “I’ll send some people for her. Everyone else is where they should be, or around that area.”

Lavellan turns towards something she hears inside.

“I have to go.” She says, reaching down. He reaches up, stretches, and their fingers just barely brush. “I don’t want to.”

“But you have to.” Bull nods. “Go.”

-

She comes back alive, and whole, and unhurt that he can tell. He watches her ride in from the wall by the Commander’s tower.

As the gates open and she rides in with the caravan carrying the dragon’s body, Cullen opens his door and gestures for him to follow, the expression on his face saying _see? All fine. Told you so_.

Bull puts his hands up in surrender and follows him down to the courtyard.

Lavellan swings off the back of her hart – he’ll never figure out how the hell she rides so well without a fucking saddle – and turns to the various scouts and runners who’ve come to unload the dragon parts.

The crowd breaks off after a while – after the fifth dragon, it wasn’t as exciting as the first, slaying dragons might as well be her pass time, now – and he watches her follow Cullen to the war room for a report and briefing.

“She was fine.” Cassandra says, knocking him out of his thoughts and almost knocking him onto his ass when she smacks his chest. Seriously, she’s terrifying sometimes. It’s great. Cassandra raises an eyebrow at him as she walks past him, guiding her horse towards the stables. “She didn’t get hurt. I was watching her the entire time. She’s grown as a fighter. She more than held her own.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bull says, choosing to follow after her.

“Cullen sent a  letter after us. Said you were worried and that you didn’t know where she was.” She pauses and glances at him over her shoulder. “Unusual, I admit. You always know where she is. Especially when she leaves Skyhold.”

“She didn’t tell me.”

“Perhaps she had a reason not to?” Cassandra shrugs. “You ought to talk to her about it, yourself.”

“She can go places without me. I don’t have to talk to her about it.”

“You should. You’re worried.” Cassandra says. “You don’t have to, but you should. You two are very close. And you got that way by talking. Something both of you are normally very good at.”

“Has anyone told you that you’re terrifying lately?” Bull asks as she enters the stables.

“You. Just now. You’re welcome.”

-

“You like him.” Bull muses as he watches Dorian leave to go do whatever it is he does in the library when he isn’t drinking. Lavellan watches him go. “I’m just going to throw this out there because I feel like I should – I know it doesn’t matter to you, but he isn’t into women.”

“That seems to be the problem, yes.” Lavellan muses. Bull raises an eyebrow.

“And _you_ aren’t interested in anyone.”

“What?” Lavellan blinks, shakes her head. “Oh, no. I meant – with Dorian’s family. They hurt him, the Iron Bull. They’ve hurt him very badly and I think I’ve just hurt him worse.”

“Should I ask?”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you if you do.” She sighs, holding her arms. “I want to apologize. But I don’t know how.”

“Give him space. Whatever happened – he’s got to have time to work through it on his own. Without you or anyone else butting in and interfering with his thoughts.” He tells her. “Look, I don’t know what happened or what the problem is, but I can tell that he’s not at a place where he can talk it out with you just yet. He really respects you. Trusts you. If whatever happened today was because of you – and you hurt him – that’s just going to make the mess worse. Talking with you about it won’t help. It’s too fresh.”

“But I don’t want it to get worse.” She bites at the edge of her glove.

“I’m not saying never talk about it.” Bull says, “Just give him some breathing room. Give it a day or two. It’s too raw right now.”

“Alright.” She breathes and nods, releasing the leather from her teeth.

“In the mean time, I’m pretty sure that Solas had homework for you.”

Lavellan groans.

-

He missed her. He’s been out and away from Skyhold for a few months and he just realized, seeing her sitting next to him, now, that he’s missed her a lot. A stupid amount.

He smiles and she sits next to him, smart and sharp looking in her official Inquisition dress uniform.

It’s shitty circumstances to meet under, but he’s glad to see her.

“Boss.” He nods, pushing a drink towards her with the back of his hand. Nothing too strong. She’s got _court_ in about two hours. Fucking Orlesians. Fucking _Fereldans_. Everyone’s gotta be an ungrateful asshole. Can’t calm down for one fucking second.

“The Iron Bull.” She smiles and starts talking and he raises an eyebrow at her because he knows. He can hear his boys in the background moving the fucking thing. He’s _former Ben-Hassrath_.

But she keeps talking and he lets her.

Lets them have their fun.

“I tried. That’s what’s important, right?” She says and Bull snorts.

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m good at acting surprised.” He ducks down and kisses her forehead. “Thanks, kadan.”

-

If Bull were the type to believe in a higher power, he would pray. Right fucking now.

Cole is with her, when would he ever leave her to this – but Bull is the second one to get to her.

He always seems to be the second one to get to her. Too late.

He falls to his knees, skids a little, actually – and it hurts through the leather and the knee-pads, but he skids to her and she’s lost a lot of blood already.

“You came.” She whispers, voice so faint that he thinks he probably imagined it.

His vision blurs white at the edges and his heart slams against his chest as he carefully picks her up. They’ve got to get her to a medic. He almost fumbles as he pulls a healing potion out of his pocket. His hands don’t shake, but it’s the blood that makes holding the glass and uncorking it difficult.

She watches him, eyes threatening to close – blood, bone, metal, leather, scales, skin, severed -

It’s sticky and warm, but cooling, against his skin – seeping through his glove and his trousers as he cradles her to his chest, trying to hold her up without jostling her or making it worse.

“The knife wasn’t supposed to hurt.”

“Cole – “ He forces his voice into something less _rage_ and more _problem solving_ \- “Did you do this?”

“No.” Cole cringes. “ _He_ did. But the knives aren’t supposed to hurt. Why did he turn it on her? _He loves her, still. Little wolf, little wolf pup, mine – “_

Bull snarls and Cole, for once, is blessedly quiet.

“Leave him.” Lavellan whispers. “I’m sorry. I – “ Lavellan’s throat clicks and Bull rises to his feet, surges, turning and he can see Cassandra and Vivienne rushing towards them. He runs towards them -

“Don’t.” He says as he crosses over grass and stone and bridge and pathway, barreling past the two women who turn hard and start running behind him. Cassandra yelling profanities and Vivienne breathing spells of healing.

“I was a heavy burden.” She says. and her remaining hand weakly curls around one of the leather straps across his chest. “Bull, I’m sorry.”

“No.”

_Why is he never there when she needs him most?_

“I love you.” She whispers.

“Fuck.” Bull’s vision almost completely turns white – too much inside his chest, beating, thrashing, screaming. “Kadan.”

-

“Look.” Bull says, showing her the red chord. “This is going to be our password.”

“Password?” She asks, sitting up and leaning against his side, cheek against his bicep as she pulls on the chord. “For what? Are we making a code? What for?”

“Whenever I’m with someone else, I’m going to put this on the door handle, outside.” He explains. “And when you see this, it means don’t come in. Alright? Unless it’s an emergency. Like the place is under attack or someone is dying or something like that. You get what I mean.”

Lavellan nods, taking the string from his hands and starting to wind it around her fingers, creating a game of cat’s cradle. Bull leans back against the headboard, arms crossed behind his head as she bends over the chord and continues to play with it.

“Red means someone’s in the bed.” Lavellan says.

“Nice.” Bull laughs.

Lavellan laughs, too.

“Alright, I won’t come in when there’s red.” She says. “You won’t forget to put it up, would you?”

“I won’t.” Bull says. “You know me. I’m good at planning.”

Lavellan nods, and turns her fingers downwards, allowing the chord to slip off of her fingers. “Okay.”

She turns and lies back down against his side, arm over his chest as she curls close.

She yawns.

“Wake me up when it’s time to go.” She says. “I’m going to the bog. I hate it. I never get enough sleep there. It smells awful.”

-

There’s irony about killing Tevinter extremists and templars in the Emerald Graves.

Lavellan touches a faded gravestone with the kind of reverence Bull normally associates with the Chantry.

“It’s so beautiful.” She whispers and birds trill above them. The trees are huge. Bull kind of feels small here, actually. Lots of green.

And also ironically -

Lots of _Orlesian mansions_.

Fuck, they just looted one yesterday.

Lavellan turns to him, smile blooming on her lips as she spreads her arms wide.

“Look.” She says and he looks at her, the trees, the green and imagines her before the Inquisition. Before the Anchor. Before the fancy armor with dragon bone and volcanic aurum, before the silverite and the wyvern leather. Before him, before all of them. He imagines her in the clothes Dalish sometimes wears when they’re not on a job, the soft ones that show skin and tattoos, with the leather and the beads. He imagines her in those and he imagines her running free with her stag out somewhere like this. With this exact same smile on her face and he feels incredibly tired.

Longing.

This is where she should always be. In the spring, the summer – the green things in the sunlight. Undisturbed and holy.

“Yeah.” Bull says. “I see. Beautiful.”

-

“I wanted it to be a surprise.” She says, pulling something out of her pocket, and holding it out to him in her cupped palms. “I’m sorry I worried you. I almost came back for you, but I – I really wanted to surprise you.”

Half of the lecture Bull had about communication and safety and why the fuck he’s here working with her dies in his throat when he sees what’s resting in her hands.

The chord is familiar. He remembers her making it – sitting by her -

 _It’s a promise_  – she had said.

But this -

“Half of a dragon’s tooth.”  He breathes, and takes the chord, the tooth from her.

“I don’t have a word or a tradition to match yours.” She says. “I just have my string.”

Bull looks at her face and she reaches behind her ear, and pulls a lock of her hair forward. Braided into it, like so many other parts of her hair, is a string. The same string that holds the tooth in his hands.

“That is me.” She says, pointing to the thread in his hands. “This is you.”

She tugs at the one in her hair.

“The bone.” He breathes after a moment. She slowly smiles, nods, the tips of her ears, the high points of her cheeks slowly turning pink. “When did you get it?”

“After the time with the Fereldan Frostback.” She says. “When you were knocked unconscious. It was flaking off your horn. I didn’t think you’d notice. I just – I took it on impulse. And I kept it. If you said anything about the chip, I would have returned it. But you didn’t. And then I – and then you left the Qun.”

She wove the black strands around the bone, swallowing it whole.

A chip off of one of his horns.

“The dragon had burned it.” She said. “It was brittle. I almost didn’t think I’d be able to weave it properly. But I did. And the thread is strong. And  I - ”

He follows her fingertips to the end of the braid. Half a dragon’s tooth. Half of the same tooth in his hands.

He slowly kneels and lowers his head, holding the string back out to her.

She carefully takes it, and loops it around his neck, tying it in place. As he stands, raising his head, he feels it against his chest. Right over his heart.

“Do you like it?” She asks. “I – I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right.”

“I do.” He says. “What is in my string?”

“Mulberry.” She answers. “Shavings of iron bark. Dragon’s blood. Leather from wyverns and drakes.”

He touches the string around his neck. “And this one?”

“Roses. Asphodels. Blood. My hair. The feather of a pheonix. Felt from a stag. Skin from a snake.”

Bull nods, reaches out and cups the back of her neck.

“Kadan.”

She does not have a word. He has not yet found a language with a word to match this one.

So she does not say anything back. With this, she does not have to.

-

“Heart willing, soul weak. You want to go to her, but you can’t. Something stops you.” Cole whispers.

Bull grinds his teeth and his hands are fists on either side of the bench he’s sitting on. He might actually crack the marble. Or break his hands.

“She wants you with her.” Cole says.

“Shut. Up.” Bull grinds out.

“Kid,” Varric takes Cole’s hand, “This isn’t the time.”

“She also wants you to stay away.” Cole continues. “She’s tired of hurting you.”

Bull closes his eyes.

It’s Haven – it’s the Emerald Graves – it’s Adamant – it’s the fucking Avaar basin all over again.

“I’m sorry. I was heavy.” Cole whispers and Bull _barely_ manages not to lose control and swing out and hit him in the face. It’s not – he has to remember. It isn’t Cole’s fault. It’s – it’s his nature.

Is it _his_ own nature to _fail_?

-

Something, something that has been growing increasingly vocal over the past few months, something he is hesitant to look at directly, tells him that Lavellan cannot, and should not, meet Gatt.

Which is strange.

Gatt was one of the first agents he was ready to pull and send in if she said _no_ to the Chargers, to infiltrate the Inquisition and her circle of advisors.

But now, something inside of him cautions -

She must not meet Gatt.

Something will happen. Something bad. Something terrible. Something fucking painful. Bull can’t explain it, he doesn’t know what will happen or why – but it will happen. and it will _hurt_.

Her? Him? Someone.

But it can’t be helped. Gatt is the Qun’s contact for this job. It’s too late. And he wouldn’t be able to explain it to the Qun, anyway.

-

“His name was sorrow, in the old tongue.” Lavellan tells him. “Abelas.”

Whenever she speaks elvhen it changes her voice. Makes it softer. Stranger. Farther away from him. He loves listening to it.

As he packs away his things from the ride, Lavellan rolls a bottle of vitaar between her palms. He takes it from her, and puts it high on a shelf where her curious hands can’t get to it.

(“It’s paint. For skin. Iron-skin. Or something like that.” He explains to her as he draws the patterns on, over his tattoos.

She reaches out to touch and he pulls away.

“No.” He says. “Not for you. It’s dangerous. Poison.”

“It’s pretty.” She says. Curious as she tries to get at the clay bottle. Bull continues to hold it away from her. “I just want to see.”

“The fumes are poisonous, too.” She relents. But he allows her to try painting some designs on his back with a paintbrush. Outside, in the open. With the wind and the sun. He won’t risk it with her.)

“And he wore – he wore this armor. It was like nothing I had ever seen.” Bull wonders if the feeling that burns in his chest is jealousy. Or envy. It’s hard to understand which one. And to understand why he feels _either_. “It was – he was – he was tall. Taller than any elf I’d ever seen. Broader. Like a shem. Sort of like you.”

Bull hums in acknowledgement as he arranges his health potions and other bottles in a padded box on his desk.

“And the way he spoke – it was. It was _fluent_. No one speaks fluently anymore. He did. And the way he fought. It was – it was amazing. I mean, the People have pieced together as much of the old ways as we could. But this. No holes. No gaps. No awkward attempts at guessing or mending the gaps. It was all there.”

He turns and she’s lying back on the bed, arms and legs spread as she stares at the ceiling.

“He was everything my people have ever dreamed for.” She smiles a little. “Our people were _beautiful_ , once. Like the expensive roses in the palace gardens.”

Beautiful still, he thinks as he turns away from her to store his armor cleaning supplies.

A field of wild flowers.

-

He carries her back through the mirrors. He carries her through the courtyard. He carries her through the halls of marble and gold, and he carries her to the bed they’ve got ready for her. Somehow, he puts her down.

Somehow, they get him to leave the room. Her blood is all over him. His skin, his clothes. He breathes it in, feels it drying and flaking on his chest. His arms. Sticky on his clothing.

And then it isn’t. Someone – he thinks Cassandra, or maybe Sera, maybe both, is wiping his face. His arms. Wiping away her blood. Her life from his skin.

Things go in and out for a while. White around the edges. Buzzing, humming. He remembers talking to Cole. He remembers wanting to hit Cole. He remembers Krem and Dalish. Dalish going into the room that he isn’t allowed in. He remembers Dorian and Stitches going in, too. Vivienne.

He remembers Cassandra – or Cullen – squeezing his shoulder. Varric talks for a while. Bull can’t remember what the fuck he says.

Cole comes back again, for a bit. Quiet, that time.

Shadows move. Bull does not.

And then they let him in.

“She wants you.” Cole whispers, distinctly, sharply, into his ear. “Go to her.”

She’s there, bandaged up and her hair is spread over the pillow and she looks small and pale and so out of place here. He wants to pick her up and run away again. Out of this place where nothing good ever happens.

Her remaining hand is over the sheets, palm up, and she stretches it towards him.

He goes to her. Because of course he does. He always does.

Her eyes are closed and it looks like she’s barely breathing.

Carefully, as carefully as he knows how, he takes her hand and sits there. And he waits for her to come back to him.

-

He sits with her level to him, their knees touching as he looks into her eyes.

“There is a word among my people.” The stone shivers. The chains loosen. The words are each a step closer to being undone, freed, devoured, destroyed, remade, _understood_. “It is not a word we use lightly. And it is a word that is hard for people to understand if they aren’t of the Qun.”

“I’ve done my best to understand what you’ve told me.” She says.

He nods. “You have. And this is going to be another hard one for you. Among my people we do not marry. Sex is not part of love. It can be an expression of love, when done right. But it is not, in itself, _love_. It is an act. Like murder is an act. Like theft is an act. Like baking a cake is an act. Like going to sleep or taking a shit is an act.”

She nods. “Yes.”

“So the words _lover_ or _spouse_ or _fiance_ are not words of love that we have. Instead there is a word which is used – it is used for the strongest, most meaningful of bonds. It is not an exclusive term. You can have as many, or as few of these, or none at all. It is your choice to use this word. You can give it to someone, you can take it away. It is not forever. It is an understanding. It is acknowledgement of love. Of trust. Of connection.”

She leans in a little.

“Literally it means _the center of the chest._ Or _the center of all things_. Sometimes, if you want to be romantic about it, you can translate it to _the heart_. But that isn’t what the word means. It is something deeper than that.”

“Deeper than blood. Deeper than bone.” She says.

Bull looks at her and nods. “Yes. It is a center which you could not touch. It is a center that exists within, and outside of yourself.”

“Knots.” She whispers. “Two strings, becoming one string. They part and take parts of each other with them. The thread is never whole.”

“Something like that.”

Words are not the same words with her. She gives them new, deeper meanings.

“Kadan.” He says. “It is _kadan_.”

He reaches out and touches her chin with the tips of his fingers, pulling her gaze to his.

“Boss.”

He can’t ask.

The stone inside shivers. It shakes. It is waiting.

 _Release me_. Let it all fall away.

She breathes through parted lips and nods.

“I have to hear you say it.” He needs to hear her.

He has lost many kadans. He has lost his center to death, he has lost it to the Qun, to himself.

He needs to hear this. It has to be from her.

“Kadan.” She repeats. “ _Kadan_.”

She says it the way she says words in her tongue. Heavy, deep, low and potent.

“Kadan.” He repeats after her, holding her face in his hands as he touches their foreheads together and breathes her breath in. Feels her soft skin against his palms.

The dust has cleared. It is clear.

The Iron Bull stands free, freshly made. The chains fall. And he climbs out of the marble.

Himself, at last.

 


End file.
